


Lover, Please Stay

by stargirl_caraway



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Protective Barry, well very mild angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 00:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8599927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargirl_caraway/pseuds/stargirl_caraway
Summary: Barry wants Iris to be more careful when investigating meta-humans but Iris is too stubborn to listen so they spend a few days apart. Just a bit of angst inspired by some bts pictures.





	

 

Barry tries to remind himself that his girlfriend is Iris West— Iris who can handle herself and who gives him that _look_ every time he even comes close to the subject. But this is too much. He’s tense with the thought of it all evening as they prepare dinner together and relax in front of the tv. Iris notices and has a feeling she knows exactly what made him choose to conspicuously sit on the opposite side of the couch. When they go to bed he turns off the lamp on his night table, murmurs a quick “goodnight”, and lays down facing away from her.

 She stares at the back of his head for a few seconds, deliberating. “Bear, what’s wrong?” she finally asks softly.

 He doesn’t move an inch, won’t even look at her when he answers shortly, “Nothing’s wrong.”

 Iris closes her laptop and sets it on her own night table. She places a hand where his shoulder is under the comforter. “Barry, talk to me.”

 He remains stubbornly silent.

 "Please,” she implores.

 Barry sits up, throwing off the covers and running a hand through his hair. When he makes eye contact with his girlfriend it’s almost easy to forget why he’s so upset. His heart wrenches with the strength of the love he feels for her. The soft glow of her lamp brings out the warmth in her skin and eyes, and part of him wants nothing more than to let himself be enveloped in that warmth and softness. But then his heart wrenches for another, entirely different, reason, and his blood runs cold as he thinks of earlier that day.

 “It’s about this afternoon, isn’t it?” Iris asks when he continues to stay silent, as though she can read his mind. “Barry, you know—“

 “I know, Iris!” he cuts her off, his sharp tone causing her to recoil and flash him a wounded look. Barry drags his hand down his face, suddenly exhausted because he knows how this conversation will probably go, but they have to have it.

 "I’m just—I’m worried about you. No, that doesn’t even _begin_ to cover it. I can’t bear the thought of anything ever happening to you, Iris. Every time there’s a close call, like today or with what happened last month, I feel like I can’t _breathe_ for days afterward. You’re still there but all I can think about is what if you weren’t? What if next time you aren’t so lucky, Iris?”

 “I can take care of myself. Just because I don’t have super speed or some other metahuman power doesn’t mean I should have to sit on the—“

 “I’m not saying you should sit on the sidelines, I’m just saying that sometimes you have to think about yourself, your safety!”

 “I’m dedicated to being the best I can be at my job. You knew that when we started this, Barry. And when there are times like today where I can do my job _and_ help the team, I’m going to try,” she tells him.

 This isn’t going well, Barry knows. He hates that he’s upset Iris, that she’s looking at him like that. For a moment almost gives in, but he thinks of all the times in the past months where she’s tried to be useful or good at her job at the risk of her life, and his resolves strengthens.

 “You could have been seriously hurt, Iris,” he says. “Last month you were in the hospital for two days because of this!”

 “And what, do you think you’re invincible or something? That I don’t worry about—“

 “No!”

 “Well newsflash, Barry, I may just be a normal human without any special powers, but I can still help you and the people of Central City.”

 After the intense back and forth there is only silence. It had begun to rain, Iris can’t help but notice, hearing the pattering on the bedroom window. Neither of them can move nor say anything.

Finally, Barry breaks eye contact and climbs out of bed. He stands there staring at the hardwood floor, and she can practically see him making a decision. Without looking up, he asks, “So that’s it then?”

 “I don’t know what you want me to say. It’s my career, Bear. And I can’t just sit around in Star Labs giving nothing but words of encouragement. I accept the risks that come with you being the Flash, why can’t you accept mine?”

 Barry picks up a random sweatshirt from the floor and covers his naked torso. He’s already at the bedroom door when she protests, “Stop, where are you going?”

 “You don’t get it,” he says with one more peek at Iris sitting on the bed, watching him with her lips slightly parted and brow furrowed. “I’m going to crash at Cisco’s for a while.” And he walks out of the apartment with only his essential possessions.

 Iris can only sit in silence, listening to the rain, before turning out the lamp and struggling to fall asleep.

**

 

They’ve only been dating for four months, so why does four days apart from Barry make her feel like the whole world is under water? Like all the colors in the world are less vibrant, like she isn’t really there at all? The only thing that consoles Iris is her work, and even then her usual fire has dimmed.

 Barry is the same, possibly worse since it was his decision to get up and leave her how he did. Why did he do that? Every couple hours he has to picture Iris in the hospital or Iris narrowly escaping a run-in with some meta in order to keep himself from begging her forgiveness.

 He stays with Cisco for the time being. At first his friend attempts to cheer him up, but eventually Cisco avoids the apartment altogether when Barry’s moping becomes too depressing to watch.

 It’s his lunch break the next day when he picks up his phone and is already typing a text to Iris asking about her lunch plans like he’s done practically every day since they became a couple.

 It reads _Hey, do you want to m—_ before his hands freeze in their movements. _Right_. Time seems to stop, and all he can see is her name in his phone. Iris. It takes a couple seconds to recover, but when he does he closes out of the messaging app and decides that he’s really swamped with work anyway and could use the extra time to catch up.

Back at CCPN Iris sits at her desk, repeatedly checking her phone and wondering what she’s waiting for. When she notices the time her heart plummets with the memory of Barry’s daily lunchtime texts. She opens the bottom drawer of the desk, setting the phone inside before slamming it closed.

 The days are sort of bearable with work and colleagues to distract them, but evenings and nights just feel like puzzles with half the pieces missing. Barry would sometimes have Flash business and not come home until Iris was already asleep, so she didn’t mind sleeping alone too much for the first couple of nights. It was mornings that got to her, waking up and not seeing his familiar messy bedhead and drool combination, putting her feet on the opposite side of the mattress only to find it cold and empty of Barry’s hairy legs. She imagines him complaining about her cold feet one morning and wastes no time lingering in bed alone when she feels the hotness behind her eyes.

 He appreciates Cisco letting him sleep on his couch, he really does. But he aches to go to bed with Iris again, to be lulled to sleep by the sound of her typing away on her computer, or to crawl into bed with her after a long day of being the Flash. She would always wake up long enough for a sleepy smile and a kiss to say hello. Barry even misses her icicle feet sucking all the warmth from his legs.

 ***

On their fifth day apart with no contact they run into each other at Jitters, both having shown up at the time when they were absolutely sure the other wouldn’t be there.

 He sees her long dark hair and tiny stature as he steps into the short line. “Iris?” he asks before he can stop himself. His face still clearly says _oh my god why did I do that_ as she whips around in surprise, eyes wide and slightly panicked.

 “Barry! Wow, um, how are you?” They both wince at the question as soon as it leaves her mouth because how well does she expect him to be doing?

 Still, he plasters on a smile that she knows is fake as much as he does. Nevertheless, she nods as he tells her, “I’m good! Everything’s…great.”

 “Good, good! That’s…great.”

 “Yeah, um. So how are _you_?” he asks. This time he loses the phony smile and stares earnestly into her eyes, like he really wants to know the truth.

 Iris wants him back so badly and for things to return to how they were before the stupid fight. They could reconcile right there in Jitters and figure something out.  They could be back together having one of their cozy evenings staying in later that day. She could have a lunch text to look forward to in a few hours.  

 “Well, actually—,”

 “Next customer please!” The barista calls.  

 “I’m great too,” she tells him quickly before stepping up to the counter to order.

 Barry watches as she grabs her coffee, nods goodbye to him, and rushes out the door.

***

 He doesn’t have a dramatic eureka moment. His life doesn’t flash before his eyes, Iris isn’t in eminent danger— nothing like that happens to make him realize how ridiculous they’re both being. He simply finishes with Flash duties for the night, bone-tired and weary, and instead of going to his couch at Cisco’s apartment, he changes back into his normal clothes and walks to the one he shares with Iris. After climbing three flights of stairs the normal way, he walks down the hall to their home and unlocks the door.

 Iris doesn’t want to admit it, but she has trouble sleeping without Barry there or the knowledge that he’ll be there when she wakes up. The apartment is so silent that she considers adopting a cat to keep her company. After a couple hours of tossing and turning she’s resigned to not getting enough sleep that night, so she leaves the bedroom with the idea of making a midnight snack and getting a head start on a new article. But when she gets to the kitchen and opens a cabinet to assess her options, the sight of Barry’s high calorie bars stop her in her tracks.

 Instead of looking for a snack like she planned, she goes back to the bedroom to grab her cellphone, barely registering her actions. When she returns to the kitchen she sits on the floor, leaning against the refrigerator, the tiles cold against her bare legs. Iris pulls up Barry’s number in her phone and stares at it. She doesn’t know if he’s asleep or dealing with Flash stuff at this late hour, and it hurts her to not know what he’s up to. With that in mind, she exhales deeply once and hits the green “call” button before she can chicken out.

 A couple seconds later she hears the apartment door close and a ringing phone. It’s so late and the apartment is so quiet that she flinches at the loud noise. Still holding the phone to her ear, Iris calls out, “Barry? Is that you?” even though she already knows the answer. He’s the only other person with a key to their apartment, and the two of them have almost always been in sync. She should have expected something like this— that they would come to their senses together.

 When he answers she hears his voice both through the phone and in the living room, accompanied by the sound of his footsteps. “Iris?”

 He walks into the kitchen and they can’t do anything but take in one another’s appearance. Of course they had seen each other at Jitters a couple days ago, but that had been one minute of a whole week apart.

 Iris smiles shakily and speaks into the phone. “Hi.”

 In lieu of an answer, Barry hangs up on the call and shoves the phone into his jacket pocket. Iris is confused for only a brief moment, because immediately afterward he closes the distance between them in two long strides. With one hand on her waist and the other having slid behind her ear and into her hair, he kisses her for the first time in what feels like years. How did he go for so long without kissing Iris West? He feels like a man who was so close to drowning only to break through the surface of the ocean, and his entire world is the act of breathing. His whole world is his lips and her lips, their lips locked together. At that instant he never wants to do anything but kiss her, there in that kitchen, for the rest of his life.

 Iris allows him to walk her backwards into the kitchen counter where he lifts her to sit. It makes the height difference more manageable since she’s completely barefoot and he towers over her even when she wears heels. The kiss is the urgent kind that makes her feel as though she will never quite be as close to him as she desires, never be with him enough before her time on earth is over. They break apart only because of lack of oxygen, touching foreheads as they catch their breath in between sweeter, less desperate kisses.

 “I’m sorry. I love you.” Barry tells her simply, eyes still closed as he leans into her. Iris can hear just how much he adores her in those words, and a warmth spreads in her chest at the knowledge that she is his everything and that he cares about her more than anything else.

 She pulls back, arms still looped around his waist. “No, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been reckless lately, I just…I want to help team Flash as much as I can, you know? Tuesday was a close call, too close. I still want to do my job and help the best I can, but I promise I’ll try to be more careful from now on. Are we okay?”

 His body seems to deflate with relief at her words. He smiles as he looks down into her big brown eyes, the ones that he could never say no to.

 “We’re perfect,” he tells her.

 She looks up into those green eyes, framed by those ridiculous lashes of his. How could a whole week of not looking into those eyes pass? “I’ve missed you.” Her voice has lowered to a whisper, and she sees the exact moment the shift in his eyes occurs.

 Expecting what happens next, Iris’s eyes are already closed, her head tilted back to receive the burning kiss. It’s languid and thorough, building a ball of heat in the pit of her stomach. His hands are both tangled in her hair, thumbs caressing her cheeks, until she hooks her legs around his lower back and scoots forward to be closer to him. He takes that as his signal to slide his hands under her mostly bare thighs and lift her into his arms, breaking their kiss. She doesn’t miss a beat. Her arms circle around his neck, where she touches her lips to every inch of skin she can reach. When they’re in their bedroom half a second later in the usual haze of yellow light, she’s started trailing up to his jaw.

 Separation leaves them both cold and empty, though it barely lasts a second as Barry lays her onto the middle of the bed. Languid and thorough are thrown out the window. They breathe heavily, their mouths crashing together frantically, hands gripping and sliding everywhere.

 “Barry,” She breathes at the feeling of his warm, rough hands sliding under her tank top and up her back, and his lips kissing downward toward her collarbone.

 Something in her tone makes him suspend his actions and focus on her face. The room is dark except for the dreamy glow of the full moon, but it’s enough to see that her eyes have the shimmery look of unshed tears. His body remains hovering above her smaller one, but he closes his eyes and lowers his forehead to lightly touch hers. The only sound in the room is their panting. He understands, but she says it anyway.

 “Don’t leave me.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm not a writer or anything, but I was at the airport for like 12 hours and was obsessing over Westallen, so I decided to release some of my ~feelings~ through fanfic. If this seems ooc (like Barry just walking out, that feels...unrealistic) it's because I've literally only watched 2 or 3 episodes of the show and mostly just stalk the Tumblr tag for them.
> 
> Title and inspiration for some parts of the story come from the song Lover, Please Stay (live) by Nothing But Thieves. It's one of the most gorgeous songs ever. I'm sad that I couldn't get as much emotion into my story as there is in that song, but I hope you enjoyed anyway. 
> 
> (Also, I realize this isn't the most original idea and that there are multiple fics like this. Hopefully I don't look like I'm copying anyone.)


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